Who Is The Second Most Powerful Man In The Empire?

According to this interesting post on MakingStarWars.net, it’s not who you think it is.

To introduce this idea we are going to focus on a character that appears harmless at first glance but actually holds the power to manipulate not only the people around him but events on a galactic scale. This character is Mas Amedda, Palpatine’s right hand man during the prequel films. When I tell people that he is the second most powerful person in the galaxy I’m met with one of two reactions. Either “Who is Mas Amedda?” or “You’re clearly a crazy person.”

4 Responses to “Who Is The Second Most Powerful Man In The Empire?”

The cut scenes at the start of AotCs in the Senate are very cool when it comes to this type of stuff.

The motion for commission an army is to take precedent at the start. Then Palpatine gives a speech adding to the impetus of this, lamenting Padme’s assasination to the assembly.

Then Orn Free Taa initially is calling for action against the seperatists, & the two other rep. pods in the spotlight are questioning the Jedi & security against the seperatist threat.

So it’s all set up to go ahead……… but wait!!!

Padme makes a dramatic entrance, (just after Palpatine interjects that peace is the objective)…….she survived!!!!!

Padme, one of the most influential & respected reps in the galaxy, makes an impassioned speech.

Now Orn Free Taa’s motion of ‘deferring’ the vote is to take precedence – this is probably the motion to vote on the issue, which must be voted on, before the actual issue vote – but it is now used to take away the impetus of Padme’s speech from the issue.

Palpatine exchanges a sympathetic knowing look to Padme. He is next telling the Jedi he doesn’t know how much longer he can delay the vote. Orn Free Taa is part of the loyalist commitee that turns up.

All Cut as we know.

The feel, look & tone of the senate chamber stuff in TPM was never really hit upon again in the PTs, i don’t know why, as it was excellently done & had great cinematic drama & energy.

Very insightful! I admit I haven’t given Mas Amedda that much thought before, even if I realized that he had probably been in cahoots with Palpatine the whole time. The article makes a convincing case for him being the second most powerful being in the Empire.

I can remember being intrigued and perhaps even amused by just how accepting Amedda seemed of the “unmasked Emperor” in Revenge of the Sith. While I can also suppose this could work against all the comments in the Star Wars novels of the 1990s that looked at the Imperial forces amounting to “white males” and supposed the Emperor was prejudiced, there’s always the thought to be remembered that the movies weren’t constrained by what all those authors had written before…

However, as risky as it might be to disagree with Dave Filoni, I wasn’t quite sure about the comment reported from him in the article that Vader was “a rumor within the Empire with only a few people knowing of his existence”; I immediately thought of Princess Leia telling him the Imperial Senate wouldn’t approve of hearing he’d attacked her diplomatic mission.